Tradurre Natalia Ginzburg

“Dribbledrams! Doodledums! Nitwitteries!” These are a few of the signature eccentric sayings that Italian novelist and essayist Ginzburg ascribes to members of her family in this unusual portrait of everyday life in Italy from the 1920s to 50s. An experimental novel-cum-memoir first published in 1963, it features her parents, older siblings, in-laws, dissident friends and acquaintances, as well as those known through her mother’s oft-recounted reminiscences, who had “assumed the step of the dead, light and elusive”. Family Lexicon, translated by Jenny McPhee, is published by Daunt. The Guardian.